Account of a Day
by ilexx
Summary: S 1. Set after AD,DB.


I don't own anything Andromeda.

Set after AD,DB.

**Account of a Day**

He knew that he eventually would have to get up, get back to his quarters, his office, to Command. Only: he couldn't do it. He just sat there as if rooted to the place in front of the Obs Deck window. Tyr had left long ago, time was passing on, the stars even had changed – and yet he simply couldn't force himself to get up and face the universe and himself again with the knowledge of what he'd just done. He couldn't. Not now, anyway. And he had strong doubts whether he ever would be capable to do it.

Nothing Rev Bem could tell him could change his doubts. Nothing he had himself told Tyr had managed to quiet his remorse. No offer of Harper's to share his guilt would ever lessen his own. He was a mass-murderer, a killer of countless sentient beings, the 'angel of death'.

"Hah, good going, Hunt!" he muttered with disgust to himself. "One solar system destroyed, one pride left homeless, 100.000 Nietzscheans dead by your hand: ever since they got you out of that black hole you managed to bring the blood of millions of living souls on your conscience. So much for your respect for life and its dignified existence." He tiredly rubbed his face, then left it buried in his hands. "What the hell am I doing here?" he groaned against his own fingers.

"Did you think you could restore the Commonwealth without making amendments to your innocence?"

"Beka!" The cool voice from the entrance to Obs Deck startled him into jumping up and turning towards her. "How long have you been here?"

"I just arrived," she answered him lightly, greeting him briefly by waving with two glasses and a huge, green bottle. "Just had a talk with Tyr and another one with Harper, so I thought I might just as well come by and have a talk with you, too."

Approaching him lightly, she motioned him to sit back down on the bench and joined him.

"What did you talk about with them?" Dylan asked, continuing to stare at her wide-eyed.

"Oh, I very much suspect about the same things I came to toast with you upon... Latest events!" she shrugged with a grin.

"I don't think that the latest events are exactly well suited to provide for celebration material..." he retorted. It sounded even less inviting than he had intended it to come out.

"Oh, I see you must have spend quite some time talking to Tyr. As to your remark: that's just as well, because much as I would have liked this to be champagne – it's not. Just some certainly disgusting bubble-wine from Cascada. Should fit the mood nicely," she replied, unfazed, holding out the bottle for him to open it.

Reluctantly, he took it from her and slowly began wrapping the cork up. She placed the glasses between the two of them, leaned back and pulled one knee up, holding it with her both hands balanced on the margin of the bench.

"Gerentex, GS-92196, The Restorians, The Than, the Orca and now all those Dragans... Granted, each time we only managed to _just _make it, but... we DID make it. Dylan, you certainly know how to forge a successful plan. Tell me, do you ever fail?"

"Only at life," he answered, pulling the cork out of the bottle with a dry, loud 'plop' and accompanying the gesture – or his words, Beka couldn't exactly tell which – with a grimace of disgust that deepened further as he smelled at the content. Unimpressed, Beka held out the glasses for him to fill, which he did after only a slight hesitation. Receiving his glass from her, he then looked down at his hand, holding it loosely between his knees, his elbow firmly planted on his knee.

"I'm not sure I want to try this," he muttered, throwing a doubtful look at it.

"You don't, trust me," Beka laughed at him, who had already boldly gone ahead and taken a mouthful of the indeed sickeningly sweet stuff. "Humour me, nonetheless..."

He took a tentative sip and grimaced.

"Aww..."

"Yeah, it knocks your socks off. But it might just help push things away a bit... until you have time to adjust, you know." She threw him a pensive look. "_Andromeda _told me you've been a Special Ops-guy... This can't be completely new to you."

"I've been military AND Special Ops for as long as I can think. Sometimes people died. Argosy had a... a habit of mind-wipe for its personnel. I... always refused. The very least I can do is bear the burden of my own responsibilities, isn't it? Still: causing a tragedy of such magnitude IS new to me, believe me! I didn't think I could restore the Commonwealth without getting my hands dirty. But this here..." He choked on the last words, fell silent.

Beka weighed him with curiosity.

"You didn't cause a tragedy. The Nietzscheans did it when they betrayed the Commonwealth. What you did was prevent them to win yet another victory against your guys."

Annoyed, Dylan jumped up and began to pace around.

"All good and well, but that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of thousands of parents had to mourn the loss of their children all because of me, that wives and sons and daughters, brothers, sisters and friends lost their dear ones, that 100.000 people died; people, who could have lived their lives with the ones they loved, built houses, sired children..."

"Yes, 100.000 people you didn't know..." Beka threw in. He shot her an outraged look.

"Do you..." He hesitated, but then continued stubbornly and with a bitter voice: "Do you really HAVE to always play tough on **everything**?"

She shrugged.

"I'm not playing, I mean it. Those tragic losses you mentioned... Are we really still talking Nietzscheans?"

Dylan frowned.

"I... I don't know what..."

"Oh, bullshit. Of course you know what I mean. **Your **mother and **your **father never got to hold their son in their arms again, the love of **your **life has hopefully gotten around to love another man and bear **his **children, not yours. **Your **siblings, if you had them, **your **friends... They spent the rest of their lives missing you, wondering what it would have been like, had they not lost you too early."

"So you do understand..."

"Yes, of course I do. And I can even empathise, because I know you. I know what you look like, how your voice sounds, how your hand feels in mine. I have not even yet made my mind up if I really like you, but you have a face, a voice and a feel. I know you and therefore your pain, your loss, your hurt... That's the one tragedy here that I can make out. 100.000 Nietzscheans who died 300 years ago are just statistics. And I must admit, an impressive one."

"Geez," Dylan snorted derisively, "had I but known that all it takes to impress you is a bit of mass-murder, I would've complied sooner..."

Placing her glass down hardly on the bench, Beka stood up and gave him a long, challenging look.

"Maybe you should have. Because you see, for the first time I think that maybe... **maybe **you really, really mean it about restoring the Commonwealth. Maybe we DO have a chance for a fair shot to try. Cheer up, Dylan! You might have lost a part of your soul today, but on the other hand: you also just might have won **me**."


End file.
